Swe Podcasts

Jessica Rannow, FY17 President of the Society of Women Engineers, talks with Mary Beth Biddle about SWE scholarships. Biddle is a mechanical engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems and SWE’s Scholarship Coordinator.

To close the gender gap in engineering and technology, the Society of Women Engineers knows engaging men is a key part of that goal. In our latest SWE Diverse podcast, FY17 SWE President Jessica Rannow discusses men as diversity partners with Ken Barrett, the Chief Diversity Officer at General Motors.

tephanie Senkevich, SWE Member and mechanical engineer at Becton Dickinson, interviews BD’s Executive Vice President and Chief Regulatory Officer Rick Naples about men as diversity partners for women in engineering.

SWE President Jessica Rannow interviews Kelly Thompson about her work as a professional novelist and comic book writer and her involvement with the development of the new SWE comic series, Constance and Nano.

For SWE’s Diverse podcast series, Jessica Rannow, FY17 President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), interviews Natalie Vanderspiegel. Natalie is an FY17 Sonora Region Senator and a Professional Life Member of SWE. In this podcast brought to you by SWE Advance, Jessica and Natalie discuss SWE’s Governance Update. SWE’s Governance Task Force is now reviewing hundreds of recommendations from our working groups to create one cohesive plan. Natalie explains the process and talks about her role in the Senate Working Group. For more information, go to governance.swe.org.

For SWE’s Diverse podcast series, Jessica Rannow, FY17 President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), interviews Dr. Luann Pendy, Senior Vice President of Global Quality at Medtronic. Dr. Pendy is the opening keynote speaker at WE16, SWE’s annual conference. In this podcast brought to you by SWE Advance, Dr. Pendy talks about her education, career, and how she strives to encourage other women to pursue careers in STEM. Dr. Pendy is the executive sponsor of Medtronic’s Women’s Network, which is a resource group creating and promoting opportunities for women in the workforce. She is also a member of the Leadership Council on Advancing Women at the Conference Board. In 2015, she was named one of the Top 50 Women of Influence in Technology by the National Diversity Council.

Growing up in India taught Smita Tharoor the value of tolerance and the acceptance and appreciation of differences. In this podcast, Tharoor discusses her work helping others become more conscious of their unconscious bias, the value of cultural awareness, and the insights she has gained from working in the very different workplace cultures of the UK and in India. UK-based Tharoor is the founder of Tharoor Associates, a training, coaching and organizational development company. She will be a guest speaker at SWE’s WE conference in India in April 2016, delivering a session titled “Are You Conscious of Your Unconscious Bias?” Tharoor discusses recent research that revealed that those who believe they are not biased are in fact likely to be the most biased — and ways to work more effectively with those individuals.

According to the US Department of Labor, women currently make up 7% of mechanical engineers. Early on in her career, Dr. Beth Holloway was one of them. Now Assistant Dean of Engineering for Undergraduate Education at Purdue University, Dr. Holloway is also the Director of the Women In Engineering Program which is the first of its type nationally. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education, all from Purdue. SWENext is a great way for students aged 18 years and under to get involved in the Society of Women Engineers. We asked SWENexters to submit their questions for Dr. Holloway, who spoke about the engineering profession, the college application process and how to prepare for life as an engineering undergrad. And her advice on applying for scholarships is not to be missed!

SWE President Colleen Laymen has a conversation with Senior Vice President & President Kellogg Latin America, María Fernanda Mejía about leadership, mentoring in the moment and the challenges women engineers face today.

SWE leaders will be launching the first national gender study of its kind this spring. In episode two of the Diverse podcast series, “Gender Equity & Engineering: Leadership Strategies for Inclusive Cultures”, host Jo Miller interviews founder and principal of Primer Michaels, Beth Michaels, who is leading the SWE National Gender Equity Culture Study. Learn about the research and how corporate culture impacts the retention and advancement of women employees.

Gender bias falls into four distinct patterns. 1) Prove-it-again!: women have to provide more evidence of competence to be seen as equally competent; 2) Tightrope: Women have to behave in traditionally masculine ways (direct, commanding, ambitious) to be seen as go-getters—but women are expected to be feminine. Often women find themselves walking a tightrope between being seen as too feminine to be competent or too masculine to be likable. 3) Maternal wall: Motherhood triggers strong negative competence and commitment assumptions. 4) Tug of War: Gender bias fuels conflict among women, for example when women receive the message that there’s room for only one woman at the top. My interviews with 127 women (over 60 of them in STEM) show how these biases play out in everyday workplace interactions—and the strategies successful women have used to navigate workplaces shaped by subtle bias.

Jo Miller hosts SWE new podcast series, Diverse. Jo interviews S. Shariq Yosufzai Vice President, Global Diversity, Ombuds and University Partnerships, Chevron Corporation about their recent Catalyst Award win and how the company has developed a strategy and rationale for diversity as talent and revenue driver.

A brief conversation with Diane Janknegt, founder of WizeNoze technology for kids. Diane was the keynote at the Society of Women Engineers WE Europe conference May 2015.